Would Sarah Palin run the risk of ending up in obscurity if she ran a high-profile presidential campaign and spectacularly failed? REUTERS/Daniel Acker

August 25, 2011

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The Palin prognostications continue. Sarah Palin's political action committee — reacting to fresh Palin-for-president speculation from Karl Rove — said this week that anyone who claims to know her plans is trying to "mislead the American public." Meanwhile, Salon's Steve Kornacki opined that anyone tired of seeing the former Alaska governor consume "all of the media oxygen" should hope she does jump into the race. The likely result, says Kornacki: An "epic, humiliating defeat" that would make her "disappear" politically. Would a Palin run really be her undoing?

Sorry, Palin haters, that is wishful thinking: While a Palin run seems fairly unlikely, "I am not sure it is possible for Palin to alienate her core audience" even if she lost, says Steven L. Taylor at Outside the Beltway. In fact, I think a run could still help her maintain her "medium level politico-celebrity level well into the future." After all, "since a lot of her shtick is based on being the victim of ye olde lamestream media, defeat has a certain cache.""Would running spell the end of Palin?"

Not running would make her irrelevant: Actually, Kornacki might have a point, says John Sides at The Monkey Cage. "But here's another way to make Palin disappear: have a presidential election in which she is not a candidate." Any prominent Republican who's not in the race will have to sit idly on the sidelines while "the candidates, and then the ultimate nominee, will suck up virtually all of the oxygen.""Making Palin 'disappear'"

Palin is not going to disappear, period: Kornacki's theory that Palin would end up in obscurity, like the Gary Hart did in 1988, is amusing, says Jonathan Bernstein at A Plain Blog About Politics, but even a loss wouldn't make her a "joke" like the Democrat Hart was. Hart was left with nothing when, humiliated by scandal, he ceased to be a viable candidate. Conservatives who are "very hostile to the GOP 'establishment'" will stick with Palin, win or lose."How to make Palin go away"